Ottawa MP John Baird, the longest-serving foreign affairs minister Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government has ever known, officially resigned from cabinet Tuesday morning and will resign as MP for Ottawa West-Nepean in the coming weeks.

Baird won’t seek re-election in this fall’s federal campaign.

Rising in the House of Commons to applause from all sides, he said,“Let me start by saying how overwhelmingly optimistic I am about the future of this country.”

“I have seen the stature of this country grow in the eyes of the world.”

“The world has seen the best that Canada has to offer.”

Baird said he told Prime Minister Stephen Harper Monday that he was quitting as minister and would leave as MP in the weeks ahead.

“I will miss this place very much and all the people in it,” he told MPs. “The time has come to start a new chapter in my life.”

Being foreign minister was a tremendous experience, but I never took your trust for granted

Baird said it had been a privilege to serve in Harper’s cabinet since 2006. He described Harper as a “friend and mentor” and said he looked forward to supporting the Tories in the next election.

“I believed in this prime minister. And I continue to believe him all these years later. He is one of our great leaders.”

Baird thanked all of his staff, public servants and the diplomats he has worked with. He also addressed the voters in his riding.

“Being foreign minister was a tremendous experience, but I never took your trust for granted.”

Baird’s resignation from cabinet, which caught many by surprise, leaves a massive hole on the Conservative front bench just months before a federal election.

One of Harper’s most trusted political lieutenants, the tough-talking Baird was seen as one of the few ministers in cabinet who was able to speak with some autonomy.

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But he also earned a bit of a reputation as a Mr. Fix It in cabinet and the Tory caucus, having served in several portfolios over the last nine years, including Treasury Board, Environment (on two different occasions), Transport and government House leader.

He was first elected to the House of Commons in the 2006 election that saw Harper’s Conservatives win power — after serving in Mike Harris’s Ontario PC government — and was re-elected as MP in the 2008 and 2011 federal elections.

Baird will be able to collect his full parliamentary pension at age 55. Reforms to the MP pension plan passed in 2012 will see new MPs elected in the 2015 campaign wait until 65 to collect their full pension benefits, if they’ve served six years in the Commons.

However, current MPs who already have six years of service will be able to draw pension benefits at age 55 for whatever was earned up until the 2015 election. If they continue to serve in office, their pension benefits earned after that election would be paid out at age 65.

Conservative MP Peter Kent, who served in cabinet with Baird, said Tuesday: “He’s a great guy. He’ll be a loss, but I wish him all the best in whatever he informs us he’s about to do.”

Kent said Baird “brought a lot of energy (to cabinet). He brought a good mind and a great sense of humour.”

On Twitter, former Liberal MP Bob Rae – whose association with Baird dates back to their days in the Ontario legislature in the 1990s – called him “bombastic, mean spirited, vicious, eloquent, generous, smart, cantankerous, hardworking, ingratiating, effective, human.”

NDP foreign affairs critic Paul Dewar thanked Baird for his service. “We’ve always worked together when we agreed & debated passionately when we didn’t. I wish him the best.”

“He gave a great face to Canada. He’s personable, affable, he was tough. He was charismatic.”

“He’s given 20 years of service to Canadians and that’s a long time. I learned a lot from Minister Baird. He was there with me on my campaign from the very beginning,” she said. “It’s going to be a great sense of loss on a personal level, but we’re going to lose him as well, too, both in a political level and, of course, as a great public servant.”

“He always understands what’s happening on Main Street,” she said. “He really does understand what normal people, who are doing their everyday jobs, think and care about.”

Foreign Minister John Baird is congratulated in the House of Commons in Ottawa on Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2015 after announcing his resignation. [THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld]

Baird, 45, is not leaving for any particular job, but has decided the time is right to seek private sector opportunities, a friend said Monday.

“He’s at the perfect age and in the perfect place to make a move,” said his friend, speaking on condition that he not be named.

“He took a look at the calendar and … if he left now, I think people just do their walk in the snow. I think what’s precipitated it is he’s been doing it for 20 years.”

This is a personal decision and has nothing to do with Baird’s assessment of the electoral prospects of the government, his friend said.

He doesn’t have a particular job lined up, but it is likely to look at private sector opportunities, perhaps in Toronto.

“He has spent his entire life as an elected official or a political staffer and at this point in his life, in his mid- to late-40s, now is the time for him to build another career,” his friend said.

“He’s had 10 portfolios, which is a lot by Canadian standards, so I think he just felt like personally for him it was time to go.”

International Trade Minister Ed Fast was poised to take over as acting foreign minister.

One Conservative cabinet minister said MPs learned of Baird’s expected resignation late Monday and that people within the Tory caucus were reeling from the news.

A third source close to the minister said late Monday night that it was “simply the right time to move on” for Baird.

Baird’s first cabinet role in 2006 was as President of the Treasury Board, when he was in charge of ushering in one of the Conservatives’ first major pieces of legislation, the Federal Accountability Act.

He served in that role until January 2007, when he became environment minister. In October 2008, he became minister of transport, a role he had until August 2010 when he became Government House Leader. He was appointed Foreign Affairs minister in May 2011.

Baird is also the minister responsible for the National Capital Commission. At a meeting with the Citizen editorial board in December, he said being minister responsible for the NCC was the only political job he ever wanted.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, left, in St. Petersburg, Russia, prior to the G20 Summit in 2013. [Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press]

He also said, categorically, he was not interested in running for the Ontario Progressive Conservative leadership. The deadline for that has already passed.

The departure of Baird, a high-profile and effective minister widely considered to be a good communicator, is a blow to the government. Along with the resignation of Jim Flaherty a month before his death last year, it means two of Harper’s most powerful ministers will have left Harper’s inner circle in less than a year.

It leaves the prime minister with the politically tricky task of shuffling his cabinet at a critical time in his mandate. The Tories are just months away from seeking re-election with voters expected to cast their ballots on Oct. 19.

In the meantime, the government must deal with the economic uncertainty of plummeting oil prices and a declining dollar.

On the international front, Canada is part of a military coalition fighting ISIL in Iraq and the government recently tabled anti-terrorism legislation aimed at giving police and CSIS more powers.

As foreign affairs minister, Baird had been a key spokesman for the government on its Iraq policy.

His unexpected departure came as he was actively engaged in trying to convince Egypt to release Mohamed Fahmy from an Egyptian prison.

As a young man, Baird joined the Progressive Conservative youth wing and worked in the Parliament Hill office of cabinet minister Perrin Beatty.

Senior Parliament Hill reporter for the Ottawa Citizen, politics junkie, wannabe pro golfer and someone who has wordsmithed at newspapers in Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan. I've covered politics at... read more every level, including city hall in Ottawa and Calgary, the Alberta legislature in Edmonton and now back in Ottawa covering the Hill.View author's profile

Mark Kennedy arrived on Parliament Hill in 1988 as an Ottawa Citizen political reporter and has covered eight federal election campaigns. He won a National Newspaper Award for enterprise reporting and... read more spent a decade specializing in health-care coverage. He is currently parliamentary bureau chief at The Ottawa Citizen.View author's profile